Letter: One’s definition of leadership

Published: Saturday, Nov. 2, 2013 5:30 a.m. CDT

To the Editor:

Hmm … time to swap representatives, eh? (Response to letter published Oct. 25 in the Kane County Chronicle.) Let’s look at that idea.

One votes no and one votes yes on ending the shutdown. The one who votes yes then “ … called on the president and Democratic members of Congress to work with his party to develop a sensible budget and improve the president’s health care law.”

Question: After the shutdown ended, what did “the president and Democratic members of Congress” do to work with anyone to develop a sensible budget? And regarding “the president’s health care law,” well, it’s looking more and more as though the billion-plus in tax dollars that has been allocated for it was totally wasted, as experts in the computer field are saying that it is so badly written/broken as to be unfixable. (Rep. Bill Johnson of Ohio comes to mind here.)

So, what with ACA being the flagship of President Obama, three years of work in the making and over a billion spent – it’s a total bust. Could be that the bills were already paid, but if the funding for the ACA was indeed voted down, might it have been possible that we wouldn’t have had to waste that billion-plus on what has turned out to be garbage? Maybe we could have at least demanded a refund.

So, we’re at that point where we pick one or the other of two representatives. One voted yes on funding the government and – by default – paying that billion-plus for nothing. He ignores the stonewalling of the opposition all through this mess and believes he can now negotiate with them. Like the opposition, he also “owns” Obamacare.

The other voted no. No money to fund the government, which included Obamacare, which, I believe, should include not paying for the wasted time and effort spent on this unworkable/unfixable software. No money for the government because the opposition continually demanded all or nothing, in spite of offers to negotiate, and here we are, running out of money, yet spending a billion-plus headed for the bit-bucket.

I guess it all depends on one’s definition of leadership. I, for one, recognize it in Hultgren. I wish I could say the same for those who capitulated to the real extremists.